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post #81 of 148
9/3/11 at 10:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post

This explains the death of XServe.

Not really. Xserve was a relatively underpowered server. For iCloud they will not be using wimpy 1U chassis machines. One trend now days is use to bigger boxes like 4U, with tons of RAM and big CPUs with lots of fans, then do vitalization. You get way more bang for your buck and better power usage. If they did choose to use smaller boxes it would probably be blades.

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post #82 of 148
9/3/11 at 10:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DerekS View Post

This is one of the more absurd rumors I've heard.
  1. Apple always avoids entrusting their user experience to third parties when they can.
  2. Why build a data center if you're going to outsource it?
  3. Azure is way too new/unproven for them to even consider much less rely on.

I don't see why this is so hard to comprehend for people. Apple has NO products for Enterprise. What do you expect them to use? MySQL running on a Mac Pro, backed up by Time Machine? You can barely run a company internal Web server on that setup. Apple doesn't even sell a machine "expensive enough" for this type of operation—there are $50K servers out there that run circles around the highest end Mac Pro, with good reason—they cost $50K for starters.

On Mac OS X what will they use for data deduplication? Data center management? Virtual machine management? Backup? Security? Companies like Symantec and EMC have very expensive, very specific software for datacenter management. Apple is going to be using them to underpin the Azure apps on top. All that software runs on Windows and Linux, not Mac OS X.

Also, what do you guys think iTunes Store is running on? It's not Mac OS X…every time I've checked its Solaris or Unix servers running on HP machines…
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post #83 of 148
9/3/11 at 10:30am
Hmm...sounds like a plausible rumors but unlikely. Steve Jobs was proud to state that Apple controls the whole ball of wax from soup to nuts. You see that with their consumer electronic devices. The iCloud will be no different. If anything, this is a temporary solution. SQL Azure does support NOSQL databases so they could be handling that piece and the API piece for vendors to build on could be what Amazon is handling.

What this rumor is suggesting is that Apple doesn't have the server technology to make a farm to support iCould. That's strange since Apple easily supports iTunes, Ping, MobileMe, the App Stores, etc from their current data centers. Though for Apple's data center they'll need density which either means Apple is buying 3rd party hardware or customizing their own suited to their needs.

You can bet if Apple is using Microsoft and Amazon then that is a short term solution until their data centers are up and fully functional. The costs for Windows and SQL Azure are not cheap and I'd imagine that Amazon is not either so they'd want to bring that in-house on cost alone.
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post #84 of 148
9/3/11 at 10:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by asdasd View Post

Everybody should get over themselves. This has cheered me up. Amazon have a fully scalable system, and MS has something to prove with theirs. For both companies iCloud would be a big deal. On the other hand Apple do not have this expertise, and you cant take the existing employees at Apple and make them n-tiered super stars over night. That just doesn't happen.

So now I know that iCloud will work, and will scale. Good. Since, as the report says. load is being distributed amongst the backend carriers via an Apple formulated API . If Apple want to add their own backend to the mix in the future they can, for now they need the experts.

Anything else would have been suicide.

The voice of reason. Most people have no clue as to what's involved in building and running a large-scale web applications infrastructure. It makes perfect sense that Apple would build it's software platform in such a way that it can be run on any number of 'cloud' infrastructures including Amazon, Microsoft, and others. Apple has stumbled badly, in Cloud Services, and they cannot afford to have iCloud fail especially due to lack of a scalable, reliable infrastructure.
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post #85 of 148
9/3/11 at 10:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by thompr View Post

I disagree that using the word "poached" in this manner is illegal. To address your proposed argument: this isn't a crowded theater, and nobody is actually shouting "fire". (Did the word "poached" actually frighten you and make you want to run out of the room you are sitting in?)

What you are really wanting to say is that this may be an instance of libel, with Apple as the victim. But I think that argument fails too. Most people reading this will recognize the use of the word "poached" as just an artistic vivid verb. That's because there is actually no such thing as "poaching" a human. The definition of the word is confined to the illegal taking of wild animals and plants. At best, you could chastise the writer for using it inappropriately, since it also implies illegal behavior that he can't prove.

[Update: Well, I was wrong and take the previous paragraph back, because apparently "employee poaching" has graduated from a euphemism to an actual term with a law attached and everything. However, still, in the case of this post and context, I still believe the next paragraph...]

But I don't see the malice, the harm, or the person that's really going to care enough to raise a snicker over it. (Except you just did. Are you especially sensitive to such topics?)

Thompson

As the saying goes, "perception is reality." And as we have witnessed recently with Steve Jobs/philanthropic activity, letting it go leads to conclusions that whole fully wrong and misleading.

As a past publisher in the scientific arena, not confronting the errors more often than not leads to further issues; often costly, if not totally propelling further efforts to undo them.
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post #86 of 148
9/3/11 at 10:45am
For some reason, the launch of iCloud has me thinking about Ping. What ever happened to Ping? Does anyone use that thing?
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post #87 of 148
9/3/11 at 10:52am
If there is any truth to this at all, then it seems to me like Apple needs to climb off of that ludicrous war chest of theirs and use some of it to build a few new data centers. The last thing they need to be doing is depending on Microsoft again.

Agreed?

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post #88 of 148
9/3/11 at 11:10am
Amazon's data centers are located in Ashburn, Virginia, Dallas/Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, New Jersey, Palo Alto, California, Seattle, St. Louis, Amsterdam, Dublin, Frankfurt, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo.

On the other hand Microsoft has around 32 data centers around the globe. Their strategy has mostly been to build them in pairs. For example Amsterdam is the back up for Dublin, Virginia is backed up in Washington state. The new Chicago center uses an innovative construction method whereby the the servers are assembled in truck containers already networked. They just hook them up to power and cooling and they are ready to go. They are estimated to be adding 10,000 servers per month worldwide.

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post #89 of 148
9/3/11 at 12:15pm
I'd need to see some proof of this rumor.

The recent pictures clearly show pictures of LOTS of servers in their new North Carolina data center.

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/a...e-idatacenter/

I could see them using MS/Amazon as a way to backup that data.
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post #90 of 148
9/3/11 at 1:32pm
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post #91 of 148
9/3/11 at 3:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goldenclaw View Post

I'd need to see some proof of this rumor.

The recent pictures clearly show pictures of LOTS of servers in their new North Carolina data center.

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/a...e-idatacenter/

I could see them using MS/Amazon as a way to backup that data.

I highly doubt that picture is of the real Apple data center. It does make me believe that Apple would use commodity servers with a customized release of OSX running on them. Something that corporate America has no access to.

To me that idea that Apple would use Amazon and Microsoft is plausible but not a long term solution for them. Apple wants to compete on Cloud services so competing means eating their own dog food. Hence their own set of APIs for 3rd parties to take advantage of iCould and not Amazon's to use their web services. It wouldn't make sense for Apple to have a translation layer between their APIs and Amazon's (too slow).

Creating a NOSQL (attribute-value pairs) database is not a major engineering feat so there's no reason to hedge with Microsoft's Azure. None of Apple's iCould offerings need the power of a relational database that they don't already have. Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison were pretty close so there's no doubt in my mind that the relational databases behind Apple's online offerings are either MySQL or Oracle databases (both Oracle products).

I'd bet this is just a rumor with no truth to it. Make for a good discussion though.
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post #92 of 148
9/3/11 at 3:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ArtDecoDalek View Post

So Apple built their massive new data center for what, exactly? Oh yeah, for hosting iCloud. Still, I can hardly blame Microsoft and Amazon for making a ludicrous attempt to grab some glory on their way out of the limelight. Why AppleInsider is reporting this bullshit is another question.

Well, first off, if you have only 1 datacenter, I don't care how big it is, it's only 1.

Second, why use you massive brand spankin' new datacenter to do "dumb" stuff, like storing content? That is the equivelant of Apple making their own hard drives for Macs, as opposed to using Seagate, Toshiba etc.

Same principle here.

Third - it has been confirmed:

http://www.infiniteapple.net/apple-i...ted-confirmed/
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post #93 of 148
9/3/11 at 3:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by the cool gut View Post

Well, first off, if you have only 1 datacenter, I don't care how big it is, it's only 1.

Second, why use you massive brand spankin' new datacenter to do "dumb" stuff, like storing content? That is the equivelant of Apple making their own hard drives for Macs, as opposed to using Seagate, Toshiba etc.

Same principle here.

Third - it has been confirmed:

http://www.infiniteapple.net/apple-i...ted-confirmed/

pwn

10char
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post #94 of 148
9/3/11 at 4:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by the cool gut View Post

Well, first off, if you have only 1 datacenter, I don't care how big it is, it's only 1.

Second, why use you massive brand spankin' new datacenter to do "dumb" stuff, like storing content? That is the equivelant of Apple making their own hard drives for Macs, as opposed to using Seagate, Toshiba etc.

Same principle here.

Third - it has been confirmed:

http://www.infiniteapple.net/apple-i...ted-confirmed/

I wonder what the data centre is for then? Maybe it was their original plan, but they decided they couldn't do it themselves. Anyway, I am glad they are not doing something they have little skill at.
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post #95 of 148
9/3/11 at 4:51pm
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post #96 of 148
9/3/11 at 4:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacRulez View Post

"Hi, I'm a PC."

"And I'm a Mac, whose files are dependent on a PC."

tumbleweed.
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post #97 of 148
9/3/11 at 4:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacRulez View Post

"Hi, I'm a PC."

"And I'm a Mac, whose files are dependent on a PC."

"I'm a PC, and Windows 8 was my idea, but this ad was made on a Mac."
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post #98 of 148
9/3/11 at 5:04pm
You do understand that PC stands for Personal Computer right? It doesn't encapsulate the concept of a Server Farm.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MacRulez View Post

"Hi, I'm a PC."

"And I'm a Mac, whose files are dependent on a PC."
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post #99 of 148
9/3/11 at 5:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by djsherly View Post

this is not an unusual arrangement. True DR requires it.

I would have thought a single vendor would include redundancy and disaster recovery as part of their service. Using 2 vendors simultaneously seems more like a corporate move, to not give any one other company the power to sabotage iCloud.
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post #100 of 148
9/3/11 at 5:17pm
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post #101 of 148
9/3/11 at 5:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ascii View Post

I would have thought a single vendor would include redundancy and disaster recovery as part of their service. Using 2 vendors simultaneously seems more like a corporate move, to not give any one other company the power to sabotage iCloud.

You initial point works fine until your vendor gets wiped out in toto. It's a risk many are prepared to take, but as an example, our data centre has comms provided by two different vendors. And they take completely different network and physical paths to it. I think within themselves, those vendors also provide redundant links.

You second point feeds off the first. I guess you're answering your own question in a way.
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post #102 of 148
9/3/11 at 5:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacRulez View Post

Ever see a Mac ad?


So Asure doesn't run on Windows?

a server farm isn't a personal computer. hence his point.
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post #103 of 148
9/3/11 at 5:59pm
What??? You mean Apple isn't a not-invented-here we-gotta-build-our-own-everything-to-compete-with-everybody company like Microsoft?

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post #104 of 148
9/3/11 at 6:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacTel View Post

Hmm...sounds like a plausible rumors but unlikely. Steve Jobs was proud to state that Apple controls the whole ball of wax from soup to nuts. You see that with their consumer electronic devices. The iCloud will be no different. If anything, this is a temporary solution. SQL Azure does support NOSQL databases so they could be handling that piece and the API piece for vendors to build on could be what Amazon is handling.

What this rumor is suggesting is that Apple doesn't have the server technology to make a farm to support iCould. That's strange since Apple easily supports iTunes, Ping, MobileMe, the App Stores, etc from their current data centers. Though for Apple's data center they'll need density which either means Apple is buying 3rd party hardware or customizing their own suited to their needs.

You can bet if Apple is using Microsoft and Amazon then that is a short term solution until their data centers are up and fully functional. The costs for Windows and SQL Azure are not cheap and I'd imagine that Amazon is not either so they'd want to bring that in-house on cost alone.

Apple has one data center. Microsoft has dozens. People sending data from California to the east coast would be latency hell

And there is the API aspect of azure

I bet when the new map product goes live ms will host the backend as well. Bing maps is a lot better than google maps
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post #105 of 148
9/3/11 at 6:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post

What??? You mean Apple isn't a not-invented-here we-gotta-build-our-own-everything-to-compete-with-everybody company like Microsoft?

Isn't it amazing how much the haters are getting worked up about this.

Maybe Apple should start building their own delivery trucks. And airplanes to import the computers. And refrigerators for their cafeteria. And their own refineries for the fuel to drive their delivery trucks and airplanes.
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post #106 of 148
9/3/11 at 7:05pm
What is really interesting is that this is not something that was done yesterday. Azure is fairly new and if you consider the development time apple must have been the first customer if not there before the official announcement.

This must have been something tim cook did a long time ago. Not the new data center guy. This would have been in development long before he came on board

Years ago I alpha tested some software for Microsoft that is very similar to cloud. Only difference is that it was a private p2p client for your own personal use. Kind of like dropbox. I left my pc on at home when I went on vacation and sent all my photos to it automatically. You specify a folder and anything you dump in there syncs to all your computers.
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post #107 of 148
9/3/11 at 7:35pm
...so why haven't we been able to have access to Amazon via our ATV2 ?!
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post #108 of 148
9/3/11 at 7:47pm
If true, I am disappointed in Apple. They have the capital to do this right, getting ~20-100 co-lo sites across the globe and keeping a dedicated team working on it. It can even be a business unit they spin off later.
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post #109 of 148
9/3/11 at 7:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mytakeonit View Post

...so why haven't we been able to have access to Amazon via our ATV2 ?!



I seem to be using this image a lot recently. I seriously doubt that it's a failing on my part.
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post #110 of 148
9/3/11 at 8:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta View Post

Isn't it amazing how much the haters are getting worked up about this.

Maybe Apple should start building their own delivery trucks. And airplanes to import the computers. And refrigerators for their cafeteria. And their own refineries for the fuel to drive their delivery trucks and airplanes.

it works both ways. Don't some Apple lovers also make a big deal and proclaim how 100 percent free from Microsoft they are because they never use any Microsoft Office products or never have to run Windows applications on their Macs? Yet they neglect things like their internet service provider which may run on Microsoft, their power company which may run on Microsoft, the house they live in which was probably designed on Windows PCs, the cars they drive which were probably designed on Windows PCs, the banks they keep their money in, the hospitals where they receive medical treatment, and so forth.
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post #111 of 148
9/3/11 at 8:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Haggar View Post

it works both ways. Don't some Apple lovers also make a big deal and proclaim how 100 percent free from Microsoft they are because they never use any Microsoft Office products or never have to run Windows applications on their Macs? Yet they neglect things like their internet service provider which may run on Microsoft, their power company which may run on Microsoft, the house they live in which was probably designed on Windows PCs, the cars they drive which were probably designed on Windows PCs, the banks they keep their money in, the hospitals where they receive medical treatment, and so forth.

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nuf said

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post #112 of 148
9/3/11 at 8:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism View Post

No expertise? I'd think iTunes Store in and of itself qualifies Apple as an expertise in running services from the cloud.

Correct.

That's why after the MobileMe team bungled their launch, the head of that group was demoted and was replaced by the person who ran the iTunes Store. More recently, Apple gave that person 100,000 Restricted Stock Units as a retention bonus. His name is Eddy Cue.

Eddy knows how to run cloud services and frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who lobbied for multiple third-party services to help host iCloud.

Apple certainly has the financial resources to build and run everything themselves, however in reality, it's probably more reliable and safer to spread the load onto multiple service operators and domains. If a DDoS attack takes out Apple's servers, there are still AWS and Azure servers to shoulder the load.

Apple has been running their MobileMe mail service on big iron: Oracle/Sun. They know that certain scenarios call for outside partnerships (e.g., manufacturing), they aren't stupidly trying to do everything themselves like they did in the mid-Nineties.
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post #113 of 148
9/3/11 at 8:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Haggar View Post

it works both ways. Don't some Apple lovers also make a big deal and proclaim how 100 percent free from Microsoft they are because they never use any Microsoft Office products or never have to run Windows applications on their Macs? Yet they neglect things like their internet service provider which may run on Microsoft, their power company which may run on Microsoft, the house they live in which was probably designed on Windows PCs, the cars they drive which were probably designed on Windows PCs, the banks they keep their money in, the hospitals where they receive medical treatment, and so forth.

It seems to me that proclamation is more about not having to personally deal with Microsoft Products sets on a day-to-day basis. On that basis, this Azure/Amazon revelation should really be a non-issue. Apple will always be the facade, what backs it should be irrelevant. Just like iTunes.

For some reason it's got people on both sides frothing at the mouth. For the fanboys, some clearly perceive this as some sort of Crying Game realisation. Truth is, as pointed out, Apple really is only at the design end of the game. None of their stuff is end to end. And with capable third parties able to fill the gaps seamlessly, why should they even try to be end-to-end?
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post #114 of 148
9/3/11 at 8:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ArtDecoDalek View Post

So Apple built their massive new data center for what, exactly? Oh yeah, for hosting iCloud. Still, I can hardly blame Microsoft and Amazon for making a ludicrous attempt to grab some glory on their way out of the limelight. Why AppleInsider is reporting this bullshit is another question.

No they aren't using Microsoft's FreeBSD servers nor Amazon's FreeBSD servers.

They'll use their own FreeBSD servers in their own Data Centers and allow them to interact with Microsoft and Amazon.
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post #115 of 148
9/3/11 at 8:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by cvaldes1831 View Post

Correct.

That's why after the MobileMe team bungled their launch, the head of that group was demoted and was replaced by the person who ran the iTunes Store. More recently, Apple gave that person 100,000 Restricted Stock Units as a retention bonus. His name is Eddy Cue.

Eddy knows how to run cloud services and frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who lobbied for multiple third-party services to help host iCloud.

Apple certainly has the financial resources to build and run everything themselves, however in reality, it's probably more reliable and safer to spread the load onto multiple service operators and domains. If a DDoS attack takes out Apple's servers, there are still AWS and Azure servers to shoulder the load.

Apple has been running their MobileMe mail service on big iron: Oracle/Sun. They know that certain scenarios call for outside partnerships (e.g., manufacturing), they aren't stupidly trying to do everything themselves like they did in the mid-Nineties.

Apple's been run on Sun for 20 years, not to mention FreeBSD.
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post #116 of 148
9/3/11 at 8:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Haggar View Post

it works both ways. Don't some Apple lovers also make a big deal and proclaim how 100 percent free from Microsoft they are because they never use any Microsoft Office products or never have to run Windows applications on their Macs? Yet they neglect things like their internet service provider which may run on Microsoft, their power company which may run on Microsoft, the house they live in which was probably designed on Windows PCs, the cars they drive which were probably designed on Windows PCs, the banks they keep their money in, the hospitals where they receive medical treatment, and so forth.

I'm sure that some do, but to be fair, I suspect that even the most rabid of them are referring to the hardware they own or use and the software running on it.

As many posters have pointed out, it is kind of silly to expect Apple to design and manufacture everything that they use. It would not be good business in many cases, and good business is where they excel.
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post #117 of 148
9/3/11 at 9:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by al_bundy View Post

Apple has one data center. Microsoft has dozens. People sending data from California to the east coast would be latency hell

And there is the API aspect of azure

I bet when the new map product goes live ms will host the backend as well. Bing maps is a lot better than google maps

Actually Microsoft only has 2 North American data centers dedicated to Azure. One is in Austin Texas and another in the Great Lakes area. I just came back from an MS architect's meeting in Denver on the topic of Azure. There's 2 more in Europe and another 2 in Asia.

What's the API aspect of Azure that you're alluding to? Apple will be publishing their own APIs for web services. It doesn't make sense to publish our own and then translate to another venders.

What kind of latency issue are you refering too? Are you going to notice it when syncing your data on your iPhone as compared to 1000s of corporation running billions of transactions with Azure? And who said Apple only has one data center? iTunes, Ping, the Apple Store etc are hosted somewhere. Apple has other data centers as this link attests to http://gigaom.com/cloud/apple-launch...hat-powers-it/. Makes no sense to believe that they don't already have data centers around the world for their current online offerings.
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post #118 of 148
9/3/11 at 9:23pm

deleted


Edited by MacRulez - 5/4/12 at 12:37pm
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post #119 of 148
9/3/11 at 9:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta View Post

Neither of the above is correct. Apple does not serve the enterprise server market and apparently has no desire to do so. While at one time they dabbled with it, they are no longer selling a server for applications like this. Apple is wise enough to 'stick to its knitting' and do the things it does well while outsourcing the things it doesn't.

It's similar to Sony. Sony makes PCs, but you can be sure that Sony's backbone operations are not run on Sony PCs. Sony's PCs are consumer-oriented products and if they do anything with businesses, it's no more than small business operations which really operate like home computers.

It's really about time that people learned that 'computers' is not a single market and there's no rule that someone has to participate in every computer market segment.

The difference between Apple and Sony is that Apple is also trying to sell its own operating system. Unlike Sony, Apple is the only company which makes computers that run Mac OS legally. Apple IS the Mac platform, which means there are higher expectations for Apple to use its own products, especially its own operating system and servers.

Furthermore, Apple likes to tout the fact that by making both the hardware and the operating system, they reduce finger pointing between different vendors-- something which often occurs with Windows PCs. This should also apply to servers. And one would expect that Apple servers should be able to support Mac users better than Windows servers can. This is one reason why IT departments want a complete hardware+software server solution from Apple that is on par with Windows based server solutions.

I would be curious to know how Apple's IT operations are managed. Does Apple practice IT management like most enterprise IT departments, or do they just let everyone do whatever they want on company computers? How many employees and computers does Apple's IT department support? What is the percentage of Macs vs. PCs at Apple? Are the Macs joined to a domain, and what do they use for a domain server? Are their domain servers Mac Minis running Lion Server and Open Directory? Or are they Windows servers with Active Directory, or something else?
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post #120 of 148
9/3/11 at 10:08pm
I think Apple needs a back-up service if anything goes wrong in SC. To have two is for absolute security.

Both Amazon and Microsoft have server farms all over the world which provides additional security to prevent failure in the US to harm Apples iCloud service in the rest of the world. Remember that Apple gets more than two thirds of their income from outside the USA.
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